


Connections In The Night

by Demjesith



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force connections, Post-TLJ, Slow Burn, force calls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:44:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demjesith/pseuds/Demjesith
Summary: Kylo felt the all too familiar tug behind his navel before the overwhelming sensation that he was being watched washed over him. He raised his dark eyes and they fell on the figure of Rey. It was clear as day despite being conjured from his mind’s eye, and it stood before him like she were actually flesh and blood. “What is it?”“It’s about your Mother. She passed."





	1. The Princess Has Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Set after The Last Jedi, which means S P O I L E R S for the new film. Read at your own risk.

Kylo felt the all too familiar tug behind his navel before the overwhelming sensation that he was being watched washed over him. He raised his dark eyes and they fell on the figure of Rey. It was clear as day despite being conjured from his mind’s eye, and it stood before him like she were actually flesh and blood. “What is it?”

“It’s about your Mother. She passed. Thought you should know.”

His stomach bottomed out and a surge of emotion rose in his throat, the bile biting at his tongue. And yet Kylo’s face stay etched from stone and he clung to the hope that his eyes didn’t betray him. For a moment, he felt like he were back in the cockpit, finger on the trigger, ready to blast away the one person that believed in him. He had been too weak then. Unable to take the plunge as he had when it came to his father. His jaw clenched a little and he gave her a curt nod.

“Then the Rebellion faces a difficult blow,” he said, simply. Business. No personal tie. Never a personal tie. He had walls for that. Hatred was his barbed wire; anger was his security.

“Please, even you can’t be that heartless,” Rey spat at him. She took a step forward and Kylo visibly straightened. “I’ve just told you the one person who loved you most in the galaxy is dead, and that’s your answer?” He could feel her pushing inside his head, rifling through his mind. For something. But what? Some sign that he was lying? Some sign that there was Light still lurking in the shadows? 

“Get out of my head,” Kylo said in a voice so gruff that it bordered on a growl. He grasped at the walls, slamming them up longer and harder and stronger. Fighting her off.

But her figure never flickered. It stood there in front of him, just as strong as he was.  “You had a family,” she continued, “You had love and acceptance and you threw it away! Are you telling me that means nothing?” 

He shifted his weight and his hands clenched into fists, the white hot anger slashing at his chest. “Love is a child’s fantasy. It is an illusion silly dreamers like yourself use to give your life a semblance of meaning. And family? Oh, don’t start me on family. What do YOU know of family?” His eyes narrowed, the energy humming and crackling around him like a vicious lash from a whip. A sense of satisfaction slid through him, however, when he felt her presence rip from his mind in the same moment as he watched a single bead of sweat slide down her face. His lips curled up in a snarling smirk. 

“Your mother taught me the meaning of family. So did your father. They helped me form my own. And love is real, you can’t even fool yourself with that.”

With a sharp inhale, he stepped forward, his boot squeaking on the linoleum floor of the ship.

“That is your greatest weakness,” he told her as one dark eyebrow raised, their gazes never wavering as he towered over her. “You think belief in love is a strength, but you’re wrong. What good is love? What does it do for you? It makes you weak and it makes you stupid and the world would better without it.” His voice had gone from calm to a snarl as his insides rearranged painfully. His mother flickered her way to the forefront of his brain, but he quickly cast it aside. He wasn’t a fool.

“Is that what Snoke told you?” Rey asked him, craning her neck back to keep their eyes level, despite the fact that he towered over. “He told you many things, I’d suppose. He told you he forged the connection between us, and here we are, Ben.” Her hand raised to flick between them. “Still connected. Still here. Snoke never believed in you. He was using you for your power. So maybe, he’d lied about many things. Maybe he wanted you to see love as a weakness so you’d never embrace it and defeat him.”

“Or maybe you’re here to try to lower my defenses, because you’re at a loss without your leader,” his voice was cold and his eyes almost matched. Frostbit with the tiniest spark of flames around the edges, casting shadows over the hues. “This path is the wrong one, Rey.” He shook his head, close but not daring touch her. Too much transferred when they touched. It would be like pouring her information; pouring her their secrets. His secrets. “Her death means nothing to me. This accomplishes nothing except to display your weakness and rally up our readiness to strike.”

“So, that’s it then, is it?” Rey asked, disbelief filling her eyes. “Your Mother dies, but the Supreme Leader doesn’t get to mourn. Doesn’t want to appear too human,” she sneered at him, the title sounding like a curse on her tongue. “Ben Solo’s dead, and you’re the monster which took his place?” Her head turned as though unable to even look at the display which she perceived as persistent foolishness. But it wasn’t. It was need. It was want. It was fate. It was….true.

“You didn’t even want this!” she continued, her voice raising into a shout as her head snapped back to look at him, eyes glaring and hands gesturing desperately to his dark clothing. “You wanted the Sith destroyed! What’s this then?”

This was also true. He wanted no more lines, no barriers; just destruction and reconstruction, making the universe into something new. But her telling him what he wanted sent a lash of pure rage slamming through his body and it dragged him forward. His instinct made him grab the hilt of his lightsaber. “Don’t tell me what I want!” he roared, but also stilled. It wouldn’t make a difference. She wasn’t there. Not physically. “I gave you a choice,” he snarled, the coldness in his eyes giving way to heat as everything inside him swirled like a nasty storm. “You chose this. I didn't want the Sith destroyed to let the Jedi rise. I wanted them both destroyed.” He spat the words at her, his grip tightening on the hilt once more. “You chose to continue this world. You chose this war.” His voice raised to a shout. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I chose my friends!” Rey argued. “I chose the only family I’ve ever had, and you wanted me to give everything up for you. You wanted me to give up everything, while you gave up _nothing_.”

Her words were like a stun ray to the chest and he froze in his spot, fingers sliding from the weapon. A scoff ripped from his throat. She believed he gave up nothing? He’d given up everything. Time and time again. Chunks of himself were ripped from the inside and reduced to rubble. And that was just Kylo. Ben, he’d given up completely. He’d destroyed him. No. No… The _galaxy_ had destroyed him. But Kylo had let them do it. To have her say he’d given up nothing was blasphemous.

“You could have come with me, Ben.”

“If you believe coming with you was an option then you’re more of a fool than I already believed you to be.”

“But you thought me coming with you was an option? Because I’m no one and nothing?” Kylo’s words were tossed back in his face by her sharp tongue and he opened his mouth to retort, but she stepped back and he sensed the finality of it. They would never see eye to eye, and it was too far out of the realm of reality to even dream they ever would. So, he stepped back as well, head hanging just slightly, long tangled locks falling into his face as his eyes closed. 

“Go,” he said after a few moments passed; the silence deafening. “Grieve quickly, we won’t give you long.” Yet the cruelness of the words didn’t hold the bite. It was a fact, simple and stated. 

“You could probably do with some rest,” she said, voice boarding on a sarcastic bite. Then when he raised his head and opened his eyes, she was gone. The lack of her there even more palpable than the presence of it.


	2. The Monster in My Chambers

Rey awoke in a single instant, a gasp ripping from her mouth as her thin frame tore from the bedding. Cold sweat dripped down her face as she desperately rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

“Why are you here?” her tone was harsh and unforgiving as the shame and aggravation coursed through her very being. Her heart was racing a mile a minute, but she forced herself to slow it as she turned her head to see the figure looming over her bed. 

“Your dreams called to me,” he spoke,  tone even and almost bored as he fixed her with that stare that made his skin crawl and her heart beat just the tiniest bit faster. He constantly put her on edge, but it wasn’t fear. Never fear.

He sat on the edge of the bed and she tossed him a look. “They most certainly did not,” she argued with him, brows drawing down in a disapproving frown. 

“They did. I was in my chambers and suddenly you’re beside me, writhing in your sleep and-”

“I do not writhe!”

He gave her a bored look and his shoulders tensed and rose in a small shrug. “Seemed like a nightmare.”

“The only nightmare I’m having tonight is this one. Right here, right now. You invading my room.” Her tongue lashed at him as she crossed her arms over her chest like a pouting schoolgirl. 

“Trust me, it wasn’t my idea. I’m not entirely thrilled to be in your company right now either. I’m very busy.”

“You haven’t attacked yet,” she said, attitude lacing between her words as she shot a look at him. “Truly meant you were giving us time to grieve?” Calling his bluff - baiting him - it was a dangerous game, but that mattered not to her. “How kind.”

He scoffed. “Not a kindness. Plans are brewing. Don’t flatter yourself on ideas of going easy on you and your band of sorry soldiers.” His head bowed, their eye contact breaking and now obscured by his ridiculous black locks.

“Not a kindness? Really? You know, we both are aware that you could have caught up,” she said, suddenly forcing the conversation to another setting but the same subject matter. “On Crait. You saw me. You knew where we were and what I was doing...but you did nothing.” The implications screamed behind her words but she held her ground, ducking her face down to try to snatch up his focus.

She could see him tense as he lifted his chin and found her gaze. “Not in time,” he said, voice low.  “I had already saved your life once, I’m not about to make that mistake again. And I have not.”

Rey breathed a small laugh, low and skeptical. “Right, of course. Monsters don’t show mercy.” 

He glared at her, fixing her with a gaze that sent a jolt of unease throughout her but wasn’t enough to make her back down. “The way you always say it. Cloaked in the voice of a cynic, words dripping with incredulity. Why, Rey? Why, after all you’ve witnessed me do, can’t you believe that I’m a monster?”  

“Because I’ve seen monsters, Ben. Real monsters. Ones cloaked as men; ones that match on the outside; ones I could only ever dream of…. And you? You play your part convincingly enough, but without your mask, you’re not a monster at all. You’re just a man.” It was still there. She knew it. Beneath this anger and confusion, there was the man he could have become. The man he had been expected to become. Ben Solo. The Light licked up his sides like blue flames, curling and dancing over his chest, begging him to open up to it. She knew this. If only he’d let it in….

She was yanked from her thoughts as he surprisingly agreed. “Yes. Maybe once.” His voice was quiet and smooth now, no trace of the gruffness he’d held a moment ago. “You call me Ben.”

Rey blinked and opened her mouth to reply, but he kept going before she was given the chance.

“Ben was human. Ben was merciful. If you cling to him like that you’ll never see me - Kylo Ren - for who I am. That doesn’t frighten you? That doesn’t frighten your comrades?”

“Kylo Ren is a figure in a mask and a black cloak-”

“Do you see a mask in my-?”

“Don’t interrupt me,” she snarled, lips curling back. “Kylo Ren is a mask in itself. He’s a costume you put on. You don’t frighten me, because despite your words, I know you.” Something in his eyes shifted and for a moment - just a moment - she saw him. The other side of the man sitting before her. Her own features softened. “I know the part you’re hiding. I know you can’t bring yourself to kill Ben Solo. Not fully. Never fully.”

“His last limb was hacked off the day Skywalker turned his saber on me. Any last ghost-whisper of him died the day I ran my father through with fire.” Their gazes latched again and she could see the storm brewing in his dark hues, all traces of what she had just seen completely gone. “Killing Snoke was a power play and saving your life was a momentary lapse in judgement. Whatever it is you think you see in me, it’s gone now. It left on board that pile of junk you currently ride on.”

Her chest lurched and her eyes widened. Was he implying that it left with her? Lips parted and eyes blinked. But no words came.

And just like that, he was gone. Vanished so quickly she almost began to question if he had been there at all. 


End file.
